Kevin Nash’s latest Kliq This episode had him recalling a trip down to Orlando for a recent NXT taping. The brand has been overseen by Shawn Michaels ever since Triple H suffered heart failure last September, and when Nash saw how quickly the wrestlers were working in the ring he approached his old friend with some advice — tell the young wrestlers to slow down. Michaels pushed back, saying the style that worked when were rising through the ranks would get soundly rejected now.
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“I went down and I watched NXT taping. I said, ‘Slow it the f— down, right?’ He just looks at me and goes, ‘It’s not the style anymore, you just have to accept that. The style is the style.’ He goes, ‘You go out there and f—ing do test of strength and people will walk the f— out of the arena. They are operatively conditioned now to do this. The fans want to see this. They want to see a spotfest.’ That’s great if that’s what the fans want. I particularly don’t.”
But Nash doesn’t completely hate the current WWE style, referencing the tag team match that main evented last week’s Raw featuring Seth Rollins, Theory, Bobby Lashley and Riddle.
“I thought the tag match that ended Raw had psychology. Yes, there was spots, but the first time Theory gets brought in, it’s a stiff f—in’ punch. Good facials, he goes to the body, gets… some body shots in. They f—in’ keep cutting the ring off, cutting the ring off, cutting the ring off, not letting Lashley get the tag and just working in and out, and Seth’s coming in, doing one or two things, boom. Tagging back out. Like the old Anderson Brothers working the corner. And it’s just like, there we go. That’s tag psychology,” Nash said.
NXT underwent a massive transformation in its presentation last September, renaming itself NXT 2.0, putting a greater emphasis on homegrown Performance Center talent while have a lighter tone and more cartoonish characters that better match Raw and SmackDown. Tonight’s NXT 2.0 features a 20-woman battle royal to determine the next contender for Mandy Rose’s NXT Women’s Championship, an NXT UK Tag Team Championship match and JD McDonagh vs. Cameron Grimes.
